Vietnam/Depression

Last night I read about Vietnam. The part that stuck with me the most was not the number of dead, or that when John Kerry came home he felt like he didn’t belong, but the unspeakable sadness of misunderstanding. Americans, and the western world altogether, simply did not understand Vietnam.

And it doesn’t worry me because it happend in the past, it worries me because it is still happening today. We are fighting a country full of people we do not understand. Westmoreland, during the Vietnam Era, thought that he could outlast and destory the enemy by a deadly bloodsucking war of attrition. But he couldn’t.

Because you can’t destroy an idea.

You can’t destroy the Vietnamese hope for freedom.

You can’t understand just how much a man is willing to lose so that he is free. Not some American version of democracy, but really, and truly, free. How can we wear down a terrorist when he believes he is fighting for freedom? How can we wear down an idea? How can we wear down hope?